Death Grips: The Artist Isn't Present

In April 2012, the trio played Coachella, and the video that surfaced later that weekend suggested that they were even more unstoppable live than either of their albums had indicated. Shirtless and soaked, MC Ride looked to be one muscle away from ripping cleanly out of his skin. His arms, legs, pelvis and trident-shaped beard fell violently in and out of sync with Zach Hill’s drum kit, set starkly against a panorama of palm trees and open sky.

Despite my desire, I knew I likely wouldn’t see Death Grips actually perform for at least a year. Since 2010, I’ve co-directed Hopscotch, a relatively small and experimental three-day, multi-venue music festival in downtown Raleigh, where I live. And last year, we’d booked Death Grips, news we planned to announce about a week after their Coachella appearance.

But as it turned out, they never played that set. If you’ve followed Death Grips’ saga at all since last year, you likely know that they didn’t perform at Hopscotch or many of the other dozens of shows they’d scheduled for the rest of 2012. Less than two weeks after adding a string of international dates, they backed out of all future tour commitments so that they might work on their second release of 2012—and their second for Epic Records. They finished the record, the great big blunderbuss called NO LOVE DEEP WEB, but Epic, of course, didn’t release it. The band leaked it on the internet instead, complete with its engorged-member cover. They even published internal record label memos that confirmed that they’d incensed the suits who had first signed them. Death Grips’ popularity skyrocketed online. Some cried press stunt, while others defended Death Grips as give-a-fuck punks.

Indeed, for much of the last year, Death Grips’ offstage and out-of-studio actions (or lack thereof) have inspired a sewage field of mixed adoration and invective. They are saviors or assholes, cogs in industry wheels or, as MC Ride might put it, “system blowers.” Just today, the blog Noisey published two pieces about Death Grips, one calling them “a machine” and perhaps“the only punk band we have left” and the other calling them“a bunch of dicks” and “stupid.”

That’s because, last weekend, Death Grips perpetuated the fuss over their image by not only canceling their Lollapalooza appearance but also by not playing an aftershow at the Chicago club Bottom Lounge. Instead, above equipment that at least suggested Death Grips would show up, a proxy set up a screen that displayed an apparent suicide note to the band from a fan. Their music boomed in the house PA, and when the show was “canceled,” a little equipment destruction followed. This week, details have surfaced suggesting that this was Death Grips’ plan the entire time.

That’s precisely what makes the whole clusterfuck so great.

Now, as a festival organizer, I can assure you that nothing stings quite so much as a band that cancels an appearance. If you care about your talent roster (and I’m assuming most of my peers in this job do), each band—from the first line with the big font to the relatively microscopic names at the end of each year’s list—feels a bit like a precious puzzle piece. You’ve fallen asleep thinking about those bands and awoken thinking about them, too. For the organizers of this year’s Lollapalooza, Death Grips’ absence likely stung. And for the folks who paid money and time to see them later Friday night, it probably stings even more. Paying money to see a band in a club and having them cancel through something that seems like a clear fuck-you is doubtlessly infuriating. Given the right climate and the right mix of chemicals, maybe you too would have broken Zach Hill’s drum kit (or fake drum kit, as it were).

And that-- as John Cage or Marina Abramović or Justice Yeldham or anyone whose idea of performance upsets our idea of what we’re paying to see has affirmed-- is OK. Friday night’s “performance” was a terrible rock’n’roll show, especially in a climate where we either get what we pay for or steal it instantly, no wait required. Delayed fulfillment now necessitates a tantrum, whether that means motherfucking Netflix is taking its motherfucking time buffering this motherfucking show or whether the band you want to see isn’t going to play the song you want to hear— if and when they play at all.

Friday night’s show, then, was a wonderful piece of performance art, a corrosion of expectations so clear and brilliant and unexpected that the subsequent uproar seems only sententious and obtuse. Death Grips have publicly explored the possibility of doing exactly this as late as last December, when they told Pitchfork’s Jenn Pelly they had “the idea of putting multiple representations of our band on tour at one time, but none of us are actually there. Like, there is five Death Grips.” Hill laughed it off then, but he’s actualized it now. After John Cage composed "4’33”, he followed with the lesser-known but more conceptually devastating "0’0”. Friday night’s non-set was Death Grips’ answer for everything that’s come before it.

Yes, maybe that makes them assholes or even “a bunch of dicks.” But here’s a more intriguing thought: If Friday’s Death Grips show that was canceled had been scheduled for the Museum of Modern Art (or perhaps the Pace Gallery), it would’ve been subtitled "The Artist Isn’t Present", and it would have been documented in art journals. But its efficacy would’ve been squandered by the expectation of any (non-)event other than a concert. Performance art is not about getting anything; it’s about being gotten. If Friday’s show did nothing else, it did exactly that to people both in the club and on the internet.